“I got them at an estate sale in Ohio,” Phillip Boyer told DuMouchelle’s appraiser James Flannery Jr. at a recent appraisal session held at the downtown gallery and auction house. The images brought back good memories of his growing-up years, he said, adding, “I remember watching him as a kid.”
Among the things Boyer brought to the event were two works by Red Skelton inscribed “To Sandra, especially for you.” Flannery said that Skelton was born in Indiana and moved to California, where he found fame as a performer. Not surprisingly, a lot of his works depict clowns, which can be a polarizing subject and people either love or hate.
Skelton went off the air in 1970, and Boyer’s pieces are dated 1972, “so they were right in there when he was popular,” Flannery said. “There were a large number of these prints made.”
Print is the operative word, however. Flannery identified Boyer’s images as offset lithographs, which he said were done on a printing press, done to meet demand when Skelton was popular. “Look closely and you’ll see the dots from the printing process,” he informed Boyer and the people gathered for the appraisal event. “That’s a good way to know what you have.”
Skelton also did original paintings, Flannery said, which bring a couple of hundred dollars. The prints, however, are worth less, generally $30 to $50 each at auction. “These might have been from an art show he did,” the appraiser explained.
Boyer said he likes them anyway. “I like clowns. I’m going to keep them on the wall. I just wanted to know what I had. I didn’t want to be sitting on a gold mine. It’s a good conversation piece. Everyone who comes in loves it.”
Boyer also brought a small piece of Art Nouveau porcelain which Flannery took a look at. He identified it as a piece of Japanese hand-painted Nippon, a lot of which was imported in the early 20th century through World War II. He dated it to 1910-1920 and said that porcelain was marked with the country of origin after the 1890s. Japanese works were marked “Made in Japan” after 1921. Boyer’s piece had a crack, which lowered the value to $30 to $50 at auction. “We have seen a lot of this coming to market and porcelain is down,” he says. “The more pieces come up, the less value it has.”
About this item
The item: Prints and porcelain
Owned by: Phillip Boyer
Estimated value: $30 and up, each
Appraised by: James Flannery Jr., DuMouchelles
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Are Red Skelton clown prints worth a fortune?
Reporting by Khristi Zimmeth, Special to The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Khristi Zimmeth, Special to The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
